


Red

by Tammaiya



Series: Unpleasant Discoveries [2]
Category: X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-25
Updated: 2004-12-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7839124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammaiya/pseuds/Tammaiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to Unpleasant Discoveries, because that child was not delivered by the stalk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fahye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fahye/gifts).



She didn't remind him of his mother. She certainly didn't remind him of his Subaru-kun, and she didn't particularly remind him of Hokuto either.  
  
She was simply herself. If pressed for an answer on what precisely had attracted him to her, Seishirou probably would have been unable to give a satisfactory answer. She was beautiful, yes, and he had always loved beautiful things, but many people were beautiful. Perhaps it was that she was filled with contradiction; an intensely religious girl living a life of sin, fragile but not easily broken, jaded yet strangely pure.  
  
Or maybe it was simply that like called to like, and it was something in her loneliness that attracted him.  
  
Seishirou would hardly say that his occasional pangs of loneliness troubled him overly, and nor would he say he regretted the path he had taken. He had not been raised to be ruled by his emotions; they touched him rarely, and if he wished he was perfectly capable of ignoring them. He would feel the occasional wistful reminiscence of Subaru-kun or his rambunctious sister at times, but they did not bother him to any great extent. Subaru would meet him again one day to take his place as Sakurazukamori, and as far as Seishirou was concerned, this was the right way of things.  
  
Nevertheless, it was in one such moment of memory-induced isolation that he first saw her, and it was a complete whim that-- having observed her behaviour out of curiosity and a small measure of boredom over the course of the day-- he asked her out to dinner.  
  
It was on a similar whim that she agreed, he suspected.  
  
Red hair, red clothes. Seishirou had always liked red, red wine and red blood. It had looked good on Subaru-kun, if his recollections were correct. Red and black; strange that those colours should suit such an innocent child. Red and black; blood and darkness.  
  
Of course, he'd always looked good in green and white, too. New life and innocence, or envy and death? Seishirou would wonder, sometimes, when these moods of whimsy took him.  
  
There was a world of difference between Subaru and this woman, nothing but differences no matter how close Seishirou looked. Perhaps that attracted him as much as anything else.  
  
They went out to dinner, and there was of course an abundance of wine. Red wine, obviously. Seishirou had never liked it white, and his dinner companion had not objected to his choice.  
  
It seemed more natural than anything else that the evening ended in bed; she wasn't so hesitant as most other girls, given her profession, and Seishirou believed in paying beautiful things proper appreciation. The human body was beautiful, his mother had told him once; treat it properly, whether in sex or death.  
  
People, Seishirou believed, were at their most beautiful in death. Hokuto had never looked lovelier than when she had died in his arms, pure white robes stained with brilliant crimson and face relaxed as it never had been, even in sleep.  
  
People were not as beautiful in ecstasy as they were in death, perhaps, but Seishirou thought there was a reason for the saying that an orgasm was like a little death.  
  
My name is Karen, she said afterwards. Kasumi Karen. Seishirou didn't tell her his name, but she hadn't expected him to, so it didn't matter.  
  
Much later, in the early hours of the morning, Seishirou went outside on the balcony to smoke a cigarette. When he returned he stood silently for what could have been several minutes or could have been an hour, observing the woman sleeping on the bed.  
  
He had finally found it, though he hadn't quite realised how closely he had been searching for it until then: the one thing inside of her that reminded him of Subaru.  
  
It wasn't her looks or her conversation, the way she slept or the way her eyes glazed over in sex. It was something subtler, less superficial; it was her fragility. Having contemplated this, Seishirou concluded it was that air of self-sacrifice the both of them held, the sense that each believed in their own lack of self-worth. They both cared too much about other people and not enough for themselves. He could see in his memory the glint of a knife as it drove towards Subaru's heart, and wondered idly what it would be that would eventually push Kasumi Karen over that precipice.  
  
He wondered if there would be anyone there to save her when she did, and if revenge would be enough to keep Subaru alive until he had fulfilled his purpose.  
  
He snuffed out his cigarette, and by the time she awoke in the morning, he was gone. It would be over three years before he would learn that this night had resulted in a child, over three years before he would discover that Kasumi Karen was to be involved in the fight for the end of the world.  
  
If he had known the unlikely set of chain events this one whimsical move had set off, perhaps he would have chosen differently that evening.  
  
Then again, perhaps he wouldn't have.


End file.
